VOLUNTARY MALGRÉ LUI

I’m not showing off my high school French. My expensively-educated daughters speak much better French than I ever did or ever will, and my even-more-expensively-educated granddaughters will put us all in the shade.

Whereupon the Ogden Sunseteers, aided and abetted by Senior Tax Analysts and Revenue Agents and their somewhat casual narratives of past times, slam the checkbook shut and play Aloha on the steel guitar.

Today it’s Whistleblower 14376-16W, 2017 T. C. Memo. 181, filed 9/18/17, hereinafter Six One Six Whiskey. Six One Six Whiskey whistled down three (count ‘em, three) perps, with offshore cash stashes. Said perps promptly file for Offshore Voluntary Disclosure. IRS even told one of them that they got the goods on said perp from an outside source. And used Six One Six Whiskey’s info to suss out the perps’ stories, to make sure they were in fact coming clean.

The Senior Tax Analyst and the Revenue Agent are both declaring under penalty of the usual in search of summary J, but ex-Ch J Michael B. (“Iron Mike”) Thornton finds their declarations a trifle sketchy and not wholly consistent.

Moreover, IRS tries to submarine in an affirmative defense, after the time to amend the answer is gone. Here’s the submarine footnote. “While respondent did not abuse his discretion by denying petitioner’s claim for award, even if respondent had used petitioner’s information, any award paid to petitioner would have been purely discretionary under section 7623(a), as the total amount in dispute with Taxpayer 1 falls well below the threshold requirement of $2,000,000 in dispute, required by section 7623(b)(5) for a mandatory award.” 2017 T. C. Memo. 181, at p. 4.

Six One Six Whiskey’s trusty attorney is all over this, and moreover sends in a motion to compel production of documents, inasmuch as a document offered as an exhibit in the summary J motion differs from that produced in discovery.

And ex-Ch J Iron Mike finds that evidence in the record doesn’t preclude the possibility that the $2 million threshold was hit.

I’d give Six One Six Whiskey’s attorney a Taishoff “good job,” and a plug, but her/his name is sealed. Good job, anyway.

Clearly no summary J.

The farce that wiseguys suddenly experience regeneration when a blower surfaces in their immediate vicinity can only be enacted by the light of the Ogden sunset.

An author, teacher, advocate and trusted advisor, Lew Taishoff is a New York City-based attorney with 51 years of experience in corporate and individual tax and real estate matters. He is an Enrolled Agent, examined and admitted to practice before the Internal Revenue Service, and admitted to practice before the United States ... Continue reading →